


Hallelujah

by The_angel_that_fell



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Again, End of the World, Happy ending I guess?, M/M, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 14:45:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19175467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_angel_that_fell/pseuds/The_angel_that_fell
Summary: It is the end of the world, and Castiel is alone.He knows this as instinctively as he knows his vessel will not last much longer. There are scars and wounds and bruises and scratches, and he bleeds from ten different places, and there is a knife driven deep into his side that he does not dare remove, for the fear that his Grace and blood will flow out with it, dissolving into the dark cracked earth.He stumbles on, eyes down. Buildings around him are lifeless husks, crumpling and folding in on themselves. There is no humanity to resurrect them now. There has not been for the longest time.





	Hallelujah

It is the end of the world, and Castiel is alone.

He knows this as instinctively as he knows his vessel will not last much longer. There are scars and wounds and bruises and scratches, and he bleeds from ten different places, and there is a knife driven deep into his side that he does not dare remove, for the fear that his Grace and blood will flow out with it, dissolving into the dark cracked earth.

He stumbles on, eyes down. Buildings around him are lifeless husks, crumpling and folding in on themselves. There is no humanity to resurrect them now. There has not been for the longest time.

"Castiel."

 A familiar voice. A brother, dead years ago, but he does not care, cannot help the salt water that builds in his eyes when he sees. A flash of a sharp smile. Lank, limp blond hair.

Gabriel.

"You are dead," Castiel says unsteadily, reaching out to steady himself on a wall. Gabriel smirks and saunters closer and he finally sees it. There is an angel blade in his hand, raised not for defence, but for an attack. There is a deviation, too, in Gabriel's dull eyes. Behind them. His fingernails are cracked and his skin is stretched thin over his vessel, and the horror of seeing his brother like this overruns any other emotion.

 And Castiel may be dying, but he does not want to speed up the process, even though there is a part of his soul that is screaming out to let his brother kill him and end it all.

But there is an angel blade in Castiel's hand and he is almost sobbing as Gabriel raises his knife and exposes his heart.

It is easy, in the end, to drive the blade through his brother's skin, to spear his heart, beating wildly. And Gabriel falls to his knees, grasping Castiel's dirty, bloodied trenchcoat. His face is turned up as though to a saviour, pale eyes wide and pleading.

"Please, brother," he whispers and Castiel does not know why he is pleading, what he is asking, only that his cracked lips are turned down in fear and horror and yes, his eyes, filmy as they are, are wide with terror and he understands, finally, like never before, that his life rests in Castiel's hands and that his brother has never been as young as he thought he was.

Castiel removes the blade and lets his brother's body fall at his feet, and he stumbles on.

 

Balthazar steps out of the shadows, tall and lean and graceful even though he is pale, skin tinged blue, and he wants to fall at his feet and beg for forgiveness. Of all the blood on his hands, Balthazar's seems the most red and fresh.

“Hello, Cassie,” he drawls, and holds up his hands mockingly. “Don’t shoot, I’m unarmed!” A mocking laugh. “Though that didn’t stop you last time, did it?” Saliva bleeds from the corner of his mouth, red-tinged.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel says. “I’m so, so sorry, brother.”

“Yes, well, being sorry _after_ you killed me is all well and good. But what about me? Cast out into the Empty. Being-” His face twists. “Nothing. Powerless.”

And then Castiel understands what this trial demands of him, and he turns his back and presses fingers into his ears as Balthazar screams in agony. His dying Grace flares out around his body, and when he turns back, there he lies, spread-eagled, wings burnt black and sooty into the dry ground. Castiel thinks of all his brothers and sisters that he has killed over the years, the ranks he has depleted, and he stumbles on, rust on his tongue and echoing death-rattles in his ears.

 

He knows what is next. And sure enough, the figure that stands in his way is tall and shaggy-haired, shoulders slightly stooped. He always did hate to stand out.

“Sam,” Castiel whispers.

“Hey, Cas,” he says. His lips are cracked, and there is a gaping smile torn into his throat. Blood drips-drips-drips to splash at his feet. There is red smeared across his cheek, and Castiel will not ask whose it is.

 _Cas._ He had forgotten they used to call him that. Sometime in the eons since he burned the Winchesters’ bodies, that had slipped his memory. Sam is in plaid, and he remembers that those shirts had been as much a part of Sam as hunting skills and Winchester blood.

“I burned your bodies,” Castiel says slowly, raggedly, and he presses a hand against the wound in his side. “Everyone you loved, everyone that helped… they came. Watched you both burn.” He needs to tell him that they were loved, that they were missed. That their names were remembered longer than his. He swallows, gulping down the blood in his mouth.

“You’re dying,” Sam says.

“Yes,” Cas says, and there seems to be nothing more to say all of a sudden. Sam attempts a smile.

“Look at us, huh?” he says. “We don’t belong here any more.” He looks around at the broken and crumbling buildings, at the devastation that marks the earth even now, hundreds of years later. Thousands, maybe. At some point, time had ceased to matter to him. The bunker, in the Winchesters’ final fight, had been obliterated. That marked the beginning of his eternity alone on Earth. He doesn’t know if this is the end.

“I love you, Sam,” he says. “You are my family, from now until the end of times.”

“The end of times has been,” Sam murmurs. Cas shakes his head. Life will spring anew from the ashes. It has to. New life, new hope – that will be what gives this end meaning. Without it…

A gun hangs loosely from Sam’s fingers and he spins it thoughtlessly. Cas understands suddenly, a fraction of a second before his grip tightens, and he shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “No. I won’t hurt you.”

“Even if I made you?” Sam points the gun at Castiel’s head, eyes flashing black.

“No one makes us do anything,” Castiel says softly, sadly, and he drops the angel blade. Then he steps forward, so that the muzzle of the gun presses against his forehead. He takes a breath, takes the risk, and wraps his arms around Sam. There is the warmth, the familiarity he has been missing for so long. Underneath it all, though, there is the faintest smell of smoke, and Castiel lets his tears bleed through Sam’s clothes.

But the gun presses against his temple, and there is the click-spin of the barrel, and then he feels like he is dying all over again.

 

Sam is gone. Castiel drops to his knees, and raises a shaking hand to where the bullet would have hit. There is a small black mark that comes off on his fingertips. He brings it to his mouth, tastes it. Spits it out immediately. But he can’t get the taste off his tongue – dusty and bitter as bone.

The knife in his side throbs, throbs, throbs, pain pulsing through his bloodstream with every heartbeat. Agony flickers when he breathes.

“ _Cas.”_

Another voice. Another man. Warm hands cradle his face, turning his eyes up to meet a sea of green.

“Dean,” he manages, and coughs. The taste of blood returns. “How are you here?”

“Even angels have reapers,” he says. Ah. His reaper.

He has no memory of dying.

“It’s OK, Cas,” Dean whispers, slipping to his knees. Strong arms come around Cas and he allows himself to relax into them, to press his palm over the Grace mark he burned into Dean. “It’s OK.”

It isn’t. He gasps, shudders, feeling the blissful fading of his pain, until the throbbing of his injuries seem to come from very far away.

“I,” Cas pants, bringing a hand up to brush Dean’s face. “I love you. Never stopped…” He stops, coughing. “Never stopped loving you.”

Tears shine in Dean’s eyes as he bends his head to plant a soft kiss on Cas’ forehead. He draws back a little, and Cas’ gaze slips to his lips.

He doesn’t know if they had this, before, but it has ceased to matter to him. All he is, all he cares about, is this moment. This last second at the end of the world, where two lone people, wrapped up in each other, forgetting the years and the pain and the torment.

He reaches up as much as he can and pulls Dean down. Their lips meet, finally, and Cas tastes blood and rot and dust and bone. He doesn’t care, not when Dean’s lips are pressing against his own, and then his wings – wings he had forgotten he has; he has walked the earth for so long – sweep open,

Stale air supports him, and he lets Dean lean into him, lets the wind bear him up as though he is weightless. Then he is gaining height. The destruction spreads out below him. Miles and miles and miles of crumpled civilisation, falling to dust. Ashes to ashes.

Castiel, the fallen angel, does not look down. Each steady beat of his wings carries him further away, up to the grey clouds.

 

He will fly past the clouds, until he sees light. Whether they will die up there, and fall like Icarus back to earth, or whether they will carry on until he returns to Heaven, wrecked as it may be, he does not know and does not care.

 

 

 

When he reaches his destination, he will be alone.


End file.
